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              <h1>C++ Committee Meeting FAQ for Boost Members</h1>

              <p><strong>Who can attend C++ Committee meetings?</strong>
              Members of PL22.16 (the INCITS/ANSI committee) or of a WG21 (ISO)
              member country committee ("national body" in ISO-speak).
              <a href="http://www.ncits.org/">INCITS</a> has broadened PL22.16
              membership requirements so anyone can join, regardless of
              nationality or employer.</p>

              <p>Meeting attendance requirements are tighter than in earlier 
              times, due to changes in INCITS and ISO rules. Anyone who is an 
              employee of a PL22.16 member organization can attend, as can 
              anyone who is a member of one of the national body groups such as 
              the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standards">BSI</a>.</p>

              <p>Any non-member who would like to visit should check with the 
              PL22.16 chair or head of their national delegation. The Boosters 
              who are active on the committee can help smooth the way. Contact 
              Beman Dawes for more information.</p>

              <p><strong>When and where is the next meeting?</strong> There
              are three meetings a year. Two are usually in North
              America, and one is usually outside North
              America. See a general <a href=
              "http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings">list of
              meeting locations and dates</a>. Detailed information about a
              particular meeting, including hotel information, is usually
              provided in a paper appearing in one of <a href=
              "#Mailing">mailings</a> for the prior meeting. If there isn't a
              link to it on the <a href=
              "http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings">Meetings</a>
              web page, you will have to go to the committee's <a href=
              "http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/">Papers</a>
              page and search a bit.</p>

              <p><strong>Is there a fee for attending meetings?</strong> No,
              but there can be a lot of incidental expenses like travel,
              lodging, and meals.</p>

              <p><strong>What is the schedule?</strong> The meetings start at 
              9:00AM on Monday, and 8:30AM other days, unless otherwise 
              announced. It is best to arrive a half-hour early to grab a good 
              seat, some coffee, tea, or donuts, and to say hello to people.</p>

              <p>Until the next
              standard ships most meetings are running through Saturday, 
              although some end on Friday. The last day the meeting is generally over 
              much earlier than on other days. Because the last day's formal meeting is for formal votes
              only, it is primarily of interest only to actual committee
              members.</p>

              <p>Sometimes there are evening technical sessions; the details
              aren't usually available until the Monday morning meeting.
              There may be a reception one evening, and, yes, significant
              others are invited. Again, details usually become available
              Monday morning.</p>

              <p><strong>What actually happens at the meetings?</strong>
              Monday morning an hour or two is spent in full committee on
              administrivia, and then the committee breaks up into working
              groups (Core, Library, and Enhancements). The full committee
              also gets together later in the week to hear working group
              progress reports.</p>

              <p>The working groups are where most technical activities take
              place. Each active issue that appears on an issues list is
              discussed, as are papers from the mailing. Most issues are
              non-controversial and disposed of in a few minutes. Technical
              discussions are often led by long-term committee members, often
              referring to past decisions or longstanding working group
              practice. Sometimes a controversy erupts. It takes first-time
              attendees awhile to understand the discussions and how
              decisions are actually made. The working group chairperson
              moderates.</p>

              <p>Sometimes straw polls are taken. In a straw poll anyone
              attending can vote, in contrast to the formal votes taken by
              the full committee, where only voting members can vote.</p>

              <p>Lunch break is an hour and a half. Informal subgroups often
              lunch together; a lot of technical problems are discussed or
              actually solved at lunch, or later at dinner. In many ways
              these discussions involving only a few people are the most
              interesting. Sometimes during the regular meetings, a working
              group chair will break off a sub-group to tackle a difficult
              problem.</p>

              <p><strong>Do I have to stay at the main hotel?</strong> No,
              and committee members on tight budgets often stay at other,
              cheaper, hotels. (The main hotels are usually chosen because
              they have large meeting rooms available, and thus tend to be
              pricey.) The advantage of staying at the main hotel is that it
              is then easier to participate in the off-line discussions, which
              can be at least as interesting as what actually happens in the
              scheduled meetings.</p>

              <p><strong>What do people wear at meetings?</strong> Programmer
              casual. No neckties to be seen.</p>

              <p><strong>What should I bring to a meeting?</strong> It is almost 
              essential to have a laptop computer along. There is a meeting wiki and 
              there is internet connectivity. Wireless
              connectivity has become the norm.</p>

              <p><strong>What should I do to prepare for a meeting?</strong>
              It is helpful to have downloaded the mailing or individual
              papers for the meeting, and read any papers you are interested
              in. Familiarize yourself with the issues lists if you haven't
              done so already. Decide which of the working groups you want to
              attend.</p>

              <p><strong>What is a "<a name="Paper" id=
              "Paper">Paper</a>"?</strong> An electronic document containing
              issues, proposals, or anything else the committee is interested
              in. Very little gets discussed at a meeting, much less acted
              upon, unless it is presented in a paper. <a href=
              "http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/">Papers are
              available</a> to anyone. Papers don't just appear randomly;
              they become available four (lately six) times a year, before
              and after each meeting. Committee members often refer to a
              paper by saying what mailing it was in: "See the pre-Redmond
              mailing."</p>

              <p><strong>What is a "<a name="Mailing" id=
              "Mailing">Mailing</a>"?</strong> A mailing is the set of papers
              prepared four to six times a year before and after each
              meeting, or between meetings. It is physically just a <a href=
              "http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/mailings/">.zip or
              .gz</a> archive of all the papers for a meeting. Although the
              mailing's archive file itself is only available to committee
              members and technical experts, the contents (except copies of
              the standard) are available to the general public as individual
              papers. The ways of ISO are inscrutable.</p>

              <p><strong>What is a "Reflector"?</strong> The committee's
              mailing lists are called "reflectors". There are a number of
              them; "all", "core", "lib", and "ext" are the main ones. As a
              courtesy, Boost technical experts can be added to committee
              reflectors at the request of a committee member.</p>
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        <p>&copy; Copyright Beman Dawes, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010</p>
        <p>Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. See
        <a href="https://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">
        www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a></p>
        <p>Revised
        <!--webbot bot="Timestamp" s-type="EDITED" s-format="%d %B %Y" startspan -->18 January 2010<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="32149" --></p>
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